This past school year, my colleagues and I restructured our Honors Physics course to unofficially pilot the AP Physics 1 course. This was motivated by several factors. We wanted to get a jump on the new AP Physics 1 course so that this summer we would only have to revise the course since we also have to create the new AP Physics 2 course. We wanted to create a pipeline of students prepared for the AP Physics 2 course. We also were dissatisfied with the current structure and emphasis of our existing Honors Physics course.

We’ve structured our course around Standards-Based Assessment and Reporting (a.k.a. Standards Based Grading) for many years, and we continued to do so this year. We did make some changes to the specifics. We transitioned from a binary mastery / developing mastery system to a 1-5 scoring system. All of the details are captured in [my syllabus](https://docs.google.com/document/d/196vqlKb3J6SzFSGo5JqNTssJynBj3iXXxxUr-D5hr0c/pub).

A vast majority of the units follow [Modeling Instruction](http://modelinginstruction.org) and leverage a combination of the official Modeling Instruction materials and derived versions. A notable exception is the electric circuits unit for which we leveraged a combination of [Physics by Inquiry](http://depts.washington.edu/uwpeg/pbi) materials and the [Modeling Instruction CASTLE](http://www.pasco.com/prodCatalog/EM/EM-8624_castle-kit/#overviewTab) materials. The current model is based on the Physics by Inquiry investigations and the electric pressure (voltage) model is based on the Modeling Instruction CASTLE materials.

Below are our [AP Physics 1 standards](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iZUjDYGAIrKrTkCSv1N7m2I5RA4HlF73nGiG0x4k7bs/pub) for the 2013-2014 school year. Standards that we felt were more significant were weighted twice as much and are designated by the “B” suffix as opposed to the “A” suffix. We will certainly revise these somewhat for next year after reviewing the College Board materials, attending AP workshops, and integrating our new textbook.

Overall, I am extremely pleased with how the AP Physics 1 pilot class was and what our students learned. The incorporation of Modeling Instruction; focus on in-depth, guided inquiry-based experiments; peer instruction-style discussion and debate of conceptual questions; and a great team of teachers with which to collaborate were the keys for the successful year.